Migration Music
Our ongoing interview series about the impact of immigration
Metropolis presents Migration Music, our ongoing interview series hosted by pianist Han Chen. Each episode features conversations with immigrant composers and performances of their works.
Explore the Series
Han Chen talks with Iván Enrique Rodriguez about his music focused on human experiences, social justice, and activism, and imbued with his Puerto Rican musical heritage.
Han Chen talks with Gity Razaz about the compositional process she’s developed throughout her career, including how she wrote a piece like Light and how her Middle Eastern roots subtly color her works.
Han Chen speaks with composer Hsu Chiayu, whose work blends Chinese and western techniques and bond over their shared experience as Taiwanese immigrants.
Han Chen speaks with composer, improviser, and pianist Jonah Haven about the process of writing a new solo piano work co-commissioned by Han Chen and Metropolis Ensemble.
Han Chen speaks with composer, pianist, and vocalist Clarice Assad about her Archetypes project, which illustrates types of characters that pop up in cultures all around the world.
Han Chen speaks with composer Huang Ruo about how he weaves his own personal understanding of Eastern and Western influences into his compositions.
Han Chen talks with composer Vivian Fung about how she discovered her own identity through listening to music outside the Western music canon, and why she rejects the idea of being categorized.
Han Chen talks with Chinese-American composer Lei Liang about his immigrant story and how he looks up to the artistic giants who have inspired his composition.
Han Chen talks with composer Jihyun Kim about her musical background and studying in America.
In the debut episode of Migration Music, Han Chen talks with composer Reinaldo Moya about his opera Tienda and his immigrant story.
About the Project
Pianist Han Chen began Migration Music in 2020 while he was reflecting on his experiences immigrating to the United States to study at The Juilliard School. While immigration has long been a hot-button political issue in the country, the conversation around it has been especially heightened and relevant to our changing world since 2020.
Through the isolation from the pandemic, we developed this series as a way to find new means of connecting with others. You’re invited to bring your curiosity to each discussion and learn how artists who had left their homes feel about their experiences, and how their backgrounds shape the music they make today. Many installments center around the journey of self discovery and how those discoveries color the music we hear.
Each episode presents an interview with a composer alongside a performance of their work by Han Chen, with an opening sequence of music by composer Clarice Assad.
Go behind-the-scenes with Han Chen talking to Julia Kuhlman about the Migration Music series.
About the Host
Han Chen is a distinctive artist whose credentials at a young age already include important prizes in competitions of traditional music as well as increasing respect in the avant-garde. Han is hailed by the New York Times as a pianist with “a graceful touch... rhythmic precision... hypnotic charm” and “sure, subtle touch.”
In addition to Migration Music, Han Chen has collaborated with Metropolis on Biophony, House Music, In Visible Roads, among others.